FILLMORE : Loan Offered to Move Short Line

The Fillmore Redevelopment Agency has voted to loan an undetermined amount of money to a small railway that would rent trains to filmmakers and operate a dining car for tourists.

Short Line Enterprises Ltd. needs $70,000 to move its freight car, tanker and locomotive from Valencia to Fillmore. The railroad is moving because its landlord, Newhall Land & Farming Co., has declined to renew its lease.

The redevelopment agency will meet with the railroad’s owners to determine the amount of the loan. Future ties with the film industry and increased tourism are among the benefits city officials said would come from having Short Line move into the community.

Stan Garner, a co-owner of the railroad, told agency members that the dinner train would run between Santa Paula and Piru up to seven days a week, meandering through the citrus groves at a leisurely 10 m.p.h. Garner said parking space and a passenger terminal would be built along the railroad tracks between Central Avenue and A Street.

Garner said he is seeking to lease use of the line from the Southern Pacific railroad between Piru and Santa Paula while Short Line attempts to buy the line.

Short Line has until Aug. 1 to complete its movie train operations in Valencia and find interim storage for the cars and locomotives. Garner said that the Fillmore-Piru Citrus Assn. has offered one of two rail spurs on its Piru packing plant property as a temporary home for the train.

FPCA President Ken Creason said Short Line has offered to haul shipments of local citrus. Creason said the Piru plant fills about 150 rail cars annually and has had concerns about Southern Pacific continuing the service. If the redevelopment agency comes through with the loan, Short Line has offered to donate a collection of railroad artifacts and two gondola cars to the city.